LX
It's not a new car model, not a new camera. Those letters in the title are Roman numerals: fifty + ten. Sixty, I believe. And no, I'm not about to dissect the possible outcomes of the next Super Bowl.
I was born in 1965, part of the first Gen X wave, and I recently celebrated yet another decade. Admittedly a big one, although I've never much bothered myself with age, or the concept of things that were or weren't acceptable, or the kinds of interests you should or shouldn't have at any given point in your lifetime. The decorum, the wisdom, how to behave, how to dress or think...none of that ever mattered. We are who we are, and we move according to the ebbs and flows on which we're carried. We react to moments and these reactions forge our path. I spent my entire life pursuing goals that felt right, regardless of conventions, following curiosity and interests wherever they'd take me. It turned out pretty well. Rarely easy, but always rewarding.
This moment, however, is the very definition of standing at a crossroads. Not because of the digits, but because of who I am. Not ten or fifteen years ago, but now.
Right now.
…
I accepted, long ago, an inner voice I knew would be relentless. A voice wholly uninterested in dialog, dishing out fiery soliloquies, filling every moment, awake or asleep, always clamouring for attention, shouting orders, questions, directions, usually through a firehose of sounds and words and images I could never catch in time. At best I'd grab a few ideas, momentarily pulling myself away from the constantly raging torrent. At best I'd regain control and get to steer the ship for a few hours. Days if I was lucky.
That voice is still there, but it's not in charge anymore. Well, not exclusively. I sit in silence now, if I need to. I look at the world without the pulsing desire to devour it at all costs. That's a dramatic evolution: I can contemplate without absorbing. Allow images to pass. After all these years I finally accept the idea of an impermanence that doesn't imply futility. Impermanence simply is, and no amount of thrashing and rebellious angst will ever change this.
Nothing matters.
Everything matters.
God, I sound like a leaflet.
For years my kids repeatedly told me I'd be young again once I reached sixty. According to their logic, I'd suddenly become a young-old-person, instead of just being plain old. I'm not sure where that wisdom came from but, geez, they weren't wrong. I was talking to one of my best friends about this milestone we both reached this year, and he had a very similar reaction: a certain sense of liberation. The realization of having accomplished the bulk of your work, for better or worse. You're not done yet, far from it, but you also don't need to prove yourself anymore. You can accept whatever contribution you've already made and look ahead, without as much pressure to perform. It's not a bad feeling.
I recently finished the 30th anniversary edition of Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. There's a story in the book about Buckminster Fuller's brush with suicide when he was only 35 years-old, and how he decided to "live from then on as if he had died that night":
“Being dead, he wouldn’t have to worry about how things worked out any longer for himself personally (...) The rest of his life would be a gift. ”
It's a tragic reckoning no one should ever experience, but I was struck by Fuller's epiphany. A gift. Nothing to lose. The freedom to be who you are without fear of consequences, of disappointing those around you. Freedom to shed old skin.
A young-old-person.
In the introduction to A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson wrote about how, one day, he realized he knew very little about too many things. So he went looking for answers. It's so easy to live without questions, to accept echoing bird songs that remain anonymous, flowers without names, the whole of life forever cloaked in mystery. I grew up thirsty for knowledge. I was the kid immersed in science books and documentaries. The curiosity never left me, but at some point I think I began considering I knew enough. Besides, we had the Internet now, right? The entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips? But that's false comfort. A mistaken impression that “knowing where information is stored is equal to knowing itself”.
I'm not interested in illusions. I'm thirsty again. Parched, in fact. I want to know birds and flowers and peer into the cosmos.
“I have entered my sixties now, a time of change—to my body, to my family, to the way I think about my future—and I cling to the crow’s promise of metamorphosis. What more could anyone ask from a new year than the promise—or just the hope—of renewal?”
What does the future hold? Impossible to say. But the R-word is now in the air. I'd always dismissed the idea: what I do is, and always has been, who I am. How could I retire from myself? But this isn't a zero-sum game. You can remove the business end of it, continue exploring on your own terms. Maybe discover a slightly different person along the way. On the morning of my birthday I placed a canvas on my work table, put on some music, and made my first real painting in several decades (i.e non-digital). It didn't convince me of my own magnificence, but I blinked and three hours had passed. Last month I completed the full archiving of this blog—stories, images, conversations. All of it now exists on a local drive, double-backed up for safekeeping (and updated with new content). In June we're rebooting the Kage Collective for a run of stories that should bring us to October. If all goes well, we'll keep going. I've archived our work there, too.
Nothing changes.
Everything changes.
New chapters need writing.
